GREEN WORLD – OART-UT 1057
Instructor: Prof. Peter Terezakis
terezakis@nyu.edu
Office Hours by appointment.
Description: This course examines environmental issues through discussion, experimentation, lectures, and speaker presentations, as well as celebrating key individuals who have helped to shape local, regional, and global environmental discussions for the better.
Thesis: The fundamental chemistry of the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food that we eat, have changed forever during the past fifty years. A rapidly changing climate, loss of open space, deforestation, increasing consumption of fossil fuels, global shortages of drinking water, population growth, and the campaign to distrust science, are some of the critical problems which we are facing today. Unless acted upon these issues they will continue their trajectories into the future, possibly fracturing the structure of civilization.
This course introduces the science behind claims in advertising and political propaganda and directs the student how and where to find the facts about issues that concern them.
Students are required to combine the scientific method with their creative practice, original research, and create a website for this course as a type of “artist’s sketchbook.” This website is used in class and for determining midterm and final grading.
Semester-long projects possess five components:
1) Introduction to concepts, conditions, and science. [week 1 – 12]
2) A midterm presentation consisting of an oral and visual description of your project, including its outline/wireframe. [week 6]
3) The launch of your project to the public on a social media/video sharing platform. [week 9 – 10]
4) Final project presentation with a critique of all components. An analysis of audience responses and a candid summation of your project’s success is required. [weeks 13-14]
5) Selected projects will be eligible for inclusion in the Collaborative Arts departmental exhibition, Earth Day events, and other NYU venues.
